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BUDDHISM    AND 
IMMORTALITY 


tClje  3Ingetsoll  ilmutt,  isos 


BUDDHISM 
AND  IMMORTALITY 


BY 


WILLIAM   STURGIS   BIGELOW 


BOSTON    AND    NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON    MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

<^ht  Viittt^itie  ptejj^,  CambriDoe 
1908 


.  iQoS.  bVw^] 


COPYRIGHT,    iqoS,    BY   WKJtlAM    STURGIS    BIGELOW 
ALL    RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  October,  IQ08 


SECOND   IMPRESSION 


THE   INGERSOLL  LECTURESHIP 


Extract  from  the  will  of  Miss  Caroline  Haskell  Ingersoll^ 

who  died  in  Keejie,  County  of  Cheshire,  New 

Hampshire,  Jan.  26,  t&q3. 

First.  In  carrying  out  the  wishes  of  my  late 
beloved  father,  George  Goldthwait  Ingersoll,  as 
declared  by  him  in  his  last  will  and  testament,  I 
give  and  bequeath  to  Harvard  University  in  Cam- 
bridge, Mass.,  where  my  late  father  was  graduated, 
and  which  he  always  held  in  love  and  honor,  the 
sum  of  Five  thousand  dollars  ($5,000)  as  a  fund  for 
the  establishment  of  a  Lectureship  on  a  plan  some- 
what similar  to  that  of  the  Dudleian  lecture,  that  is 
—  one  lecture  to  be  delivered  each  year,  on  any  con- 
venient day  between  the  last  day  of  May  and  the 
first  day  of  December,  on  this  subject,  "the  Im- 
mortahty  of  Man,"  said  lecture  not  to  form  a  part 
of  the  usual  college  course,  nor  to  be  deHvered  by 
any  Professor  or  Tutor  as  part  of  his  usual  routine 
of  instruction,  though  any  such  Professor  or  Tutor 
may  be  appointed  to  such  service.  The  choice  of 
said  lecturer  is  not  to  be  limited  to  any  one  religious 
denomination,  nor  to  any  one  profession,  but  may 
be  that  of  either  clergyman  or  layman,  the  appoint- 
ment to  take  place  at  least  six  months  before  the 
delivery  of  said  lecture.  The  above  sum  to  be 
safely  invested  and  three  fourths  of  the  annual  in- 
terest thereof  to  be  paid  to  the  lecturer  for  his 
services  and  the  remaining  fourth  to  be  expended 
in  the  publishment  and  gratuitous  distribution-  of 
the  lecture,  a  copy  of  which  is  always  to  be  fur- 
nished by  the  lecturer  for  such  purpose.  The  same 
lecture  to  be  named  and  known  as  "  the  Ingersoll 
lecture  on  the  Immortality  of  Man." 


BUDDHISM    AND 
IMMORTALITY 


'  ».i  r  v^rv  I 


BUDDHISM 
AND 
K   IMMORTALITY 

THE  view  of  the  Immortality 
of  Man  which  I  have  the 
privilege  of  stating  is,  broadly 
speaking,  that  of  the  Buddhist  religion. 
But  Buddhism,  like  many  other  great 
religions,  is  divided  into  main  churches 
and  subdivided  into  sects:  and  we  find 
conspicuously  two  principal  divisions, 
commonly  called  Northern  and  South- 
ern Buddhism,  —  the  former  having 
its  recognized  centre  in  the  north  of 
India,  in  Nepaul;  the  latter  in  Ceylon. 
The  history,  the  significance,  and  the 
relations  of  these  two  divisions  consti- 


4  BUDDHISM    AND 

tute  a  vast  field  of  study,  into  which 
we  cannot  attempt  to  enter  to-night. 

What  I  have  to  say  relates  primarily 
to  the  Northern  or  Nepaulese  Bud- 
dhism, and  more  especially  to  the  doc- 
trines of  the  two  closely  allied  sects 
which  represent  that  form  of  Buddhism 
in  Japan.  These  sects  are  known 
respectively  as  the  Tendai  and  the 
Shingon.  The  whole  of  Northern 
Buddhism  is  nearly  allied  with  Brah- 
minism,  to  which  it  is  historically 
directly  related.  There  is  a  close  re- 
semblance in  the  tenets  and  doctrines 
of  the  two  religions,  even  in  their  su- 
perficial aspects  ;  and  the  more  deeply 
they  are  studied,  the  closer  is  the  con- 
nection found  to  be.  The  forms  of  re- 
ligious service  are  essentially  the  same 
in  both ;  and  even  in  Japan  to-day  the 


IMMORTALITY  5 

greater  part  of  the  Shingon  and  Ten- 
dai  ritual  is  not  in  Japanese  but  in  San- 
scrit, and  is  identical  with  that  which 
has  been  in  use  in  India  since  before 
the  time  of  Buddha, — so  long  before, 
in  fact,  that  there  is  no  historic  record 
of  its  origin,  and  there  is  reason  to  be- 
lieve that  it  antedates  written  history- 
altogether.  It  certainly  appears  to  be 
the  oldest  ritual  now  in  actual  use  in 
the  world.  A  similar  correspondence 
between  India  and  Japan  is  found  to 
hold  essentially  good  in  regard  to  those 
special  presentations  or  aspects  of  the 
great  central  force  of  the  universe, 
which  are  embodied  in  anthropomor- 
phic forms  and  recognized  as  separate 
deities. 

It  may  be  said  in  passing,  that  for 
the  understanding  of  such  a  vast  and 


6  BUDDHISM   AND 

intricate  system  of  thought,  or  even 
of  so  small  a  part  of  it  as  we  have  to 
consider  here,  the  student  burdens 
himself  with  needless  difficulties  if  he 
begins  by  classifying  it  under  some  such 
customary  heading  as  Pantheism,  Poly- 
theism, Monotheism,  Materialism, 
Idealism,  and  the  like.  We  all  carry 
in  our  intellectual  pockets  a  quantity 
of  labels  bearing  the  names  of  such 
familiar  categories,  which  we  are  ready 
to  attach  to  any  new  packet  of  docu- 
ments, however  large,  after  examin- 
ing the  first  one  or  two,  and  we  then 
expect  all  the  rest  to  fit  exactly  into 
the  Procrustean  limits  that  we  habit- 
ually associate  with  that  particular 
title.  Whereas  in  the  present  case  the 
exact  contrary  is  the  fact ;  and  we  find, 
on  the  one  hand,  that  there  is  ample 


IMMORTALITY  7 

room  to  attach  almost  every  label  that 
the  mind  of  man  has  conceived;  and, 
on  the  other,  that  each  one  is  by  itself 
inadequate. 

Starting,  therefore,  without  preju- 
dice of  any  sort,  I  shall  try  to  set 
before  you,  in  such  brief  outline  as 
the  allotted  time  allows,  an  epitome 
or  digest  of  the  teaching  of  these  two 
Buddhist  sects,  the  Tendai  and  the 
Shingon,  in  regard  to  the  special  sub- 
ject to  consider  which  this  lectureship 
has  been  established, —  the  Immortal- 
ity of  Man.  Part  of  what  I  have  to 
^  say  is  of  such  elementary  simplicity 
that  I  almost  apologize  for  saying  it, 
and  indeed  only  do  so  to  be  sure  that 
we  start  together.  Part,  again,  though 
less  simple,  is  familiar  doctrine  that 
may  be  heard  here  in  the  West  in  any 


8  BUDDHISM   AND 

lecture  room  or  from  any  pulpit.  And 
part,  again,  lies  so  remote  from  our 
ordinary  Occidental  habits  of  thought 
that  I  shall  hold  myself  fortunate  if 
I  can  succeed  in  making  it  intelli- 
gible. 

The  generous  founder  of  this  an- 
nual lecture  chose  the  title  well,  in 
assuming  the  existence  of  something 
called  man,  and  restricting  the  dis- 
cussion to  the  question  of  how  long 
that  something  lasts.  Consciously  or 
unconsciously,  we  all  make  the  same 
assumption  ;  for  it  has  been  well  said 
that  "  to  doubt  our  own  existence  is 
to  call  in  question  the  very  existence 
of  our  doubt."  In  this  attitude  we 
have  the  support  alike  of  the  oldest 
religion  and  the  newest  science  ;  for 
Poincare,  in  his  latest  scientific  work, 


IMMORTALITY  9 

after  discussing  in  detail  the  theories 
of  force  and  matter  and  motion,  of 
electricity  and  light  and  ether,  sums 
up  the  state  of  the  most  modern 
knowledge  in  these  concise  words,  — 
"  Something  exists." 

However  reckless  and  extravagant 
this  statement  may  seem,  let  us  ac- 
cept it  provisionally,  and  further,  for 
convenience,  let  us  give  this  some- 
thing a  name.  Let  us  provisionally 
call  it  ourselves,  —  you  and  I,  —  I  to 
each  one  of  us,  —  and  see  what  are 
some  of  the  most  obvious  things  to 
be  said  about  it.  What  do  we  mean 
by  it  ?  What  did  Descartes  mean  by 
it  when  he  said  :  "  I  think,  —  there- 
fore I  am  **  ;  and  thereby  implied 
the  inevitable  correlative  :  "  I  do  not 
think, —  therefore  I  am  not"?  What 


10  BUDDHISM   AND 

is  the  "  I  "  ?  What  is  the  "  thought "  ? 
Are  they  the  same  thing  or  diiFerent 
things  ?  Can  either  exist  without  the 
other  ? 

Let  us  consider  for  a  moment  the 
ordinary  popular  view.  According  to 
this,  man  is  a  compound  of  a  mate- 
rial and  tangible  part  called  the  body 
and  an  immaterial  and  intangible  part 
called  the  soul. 

The  facts  about  the  body  are  simple, 
obvious,  and  familiar.  Its  existence  is 
as  certain  as  that  of  the  rest  of  the  ma- 
terial universe,  and,  except  during  life, 
it  obeys  the  same  laws.  This  is  a  fact  of 
observation  like  any  other ;  for  instance, 
like  the  fact  that  fire  burns  or  that  water 
runs  down  hill. 

The  case  of  the  soul  is  less  simple. 
Being  invisible  and  intangible,  its  ex- 


IMMORTALITY  ii 

istence  i^  commonly  assumed  on  two 
grounds.  First,  by  inference,  through 
its  apparent  effects.  Second,  by  what 
we  call  self-consciousness.  Under  the 
head  of  effects  we  recognize,  as  most 
obvious,  the  formation  and  mainte- 
nance of  unstable  chemical  compounds 
not  formed  by  inorganic  matter,  and 
the  building  up  of  these  compounds 
through  intermediate  stages  of  struc- 
ture into  a  cooperative  organism  acting 
as  an  individual  until  death,  when  it 
ceases  to  act  as  a  unit  and  disintegrates 
like  any  other  unstable  chemical  pro- 
duct. The  very  fact  of  death,  therefore,' 
is  evidence  of  the  existence  of  some- 
thing besides  inorganic  matter  during 
life. 

Secondly,  as  regards  self-conscious- 
ness. We  are  all,  as  we  familiarly  say, 


12  BUDDHISM   AND 

conscious  of  our  own  existence.  Under 
this  statement  we  habitually  include,  in 
more  or  less  confusion,  several  distinct 
elements. 

First,  the  existence  of  our  material 
bodies  as  objects  of  sensory  perception, 
like  any  other  material  objects,  such  as 
chairs,  tables,  or  other  peoples'  bodies, 
the  only  essential  limitation  being  that 
no  sensory  organ  can  perceive  itself. 
The  eye  sees  the  hand,  but  the  eye 
does  not  see  itself.  To  suppose  it  could 
would  be  a  contradiction  in  terms,  for 
normal  sensation  implies  disturbance 
of  a  normal  equilibrium  by  an  external 
stimulus. 

Second,  of  certain  sensations,  pleas- 
urable or  painful,  originating  not  out- 
side but  inside  the  body  itself 

Third,  of  certain  disturbances  ap- 


IMMORTALITY  13 

parently  not  of  material  origin,  that  we 
classify  as  passions  or  emotions. 

Fourth,  of  what  we  call  aptitudes 
and  their  opposites. 

Fifth,  of  desires  or  inclinations  and 
their  opposites. 

Lastly,  of  something  of  a  wholly 
different  character,  consciously  closer  to 
the  centre  than  anything  else,  and  dif- 
fering from  the  other  forms  in  being  the 
only  form  of  consciousness  to  which 
we  are  not  passive.  This  we  call  will. 
We  say,  I  feel  sensation,  pain,  or  emo- 
tion ;  but  we  never  say,  I  feel  my  will. 
It  is  always  subjective  and  active. 

These  are  the  main  facts,  simply 
stated,  in  the  commonest  terms  of  daily 
life.  Let  us  look  at  them  at  a  differ- 
ent angle.  I  once  asked  Dr.  Holmes, 
toward  the  end  of  his  life,  the  question, 


14  BUDDHISM   AND 

"What  is  a  man?"  He  answered,  with- 
out hesitation,  "A  series  of  states  of 
consciousness." 

The  word  "series"  introduces  the 
element  of  time,  the  relation  of  which 
to  states  of  consciousness  is  empirical 
and  not  essential.  Broadly  speaking, 
certain  states  of  consciousness  associ- 
ated directly  or  indirectly  with  matter 
occur  in  sequence  in  every-day  human 
experience,  but  the  same  states  may 
occur  simultaneously  under  exceptional 
circumstances.  It  is  well  known  that  in 
the  sudden  presence  of  imminent  and 
apparently  certain  death,  the  accumu- 
lated states  of  consciousness  of  a  life- 
time sometimes  revive  simultaneously 
in  a  single  flash.  The  events  of  the 
whole  past  are  seen  down  to  the  most 
minute  and  remote  details,  like  a  land- 


IMMORTALITY  15 

scape  under  a  flash  of  lightning.  Dr. 
Holmes  himself  had  had  this  experi- 
ence on  one  occasion,  just  before  losing 
consciousness  altogether  while  drown- 
ing, and  the  memory  of  the  occurrence 
persisted  after  resuscitation.  But  if,  in 
answering  my  question,  he  had  left  out 
the  one  word  "series,"  Dr.  Holmes's 
definition  would  have  been  identical 
with  that  of  Buddhism,  which  is  this, 
—  "A  man  consists  of  states  of  con- 
sciousness." 

Now,  from  this  point  of  view,  the 
whole  question  of  the  Immortality  of 
Man  is  bound  up  with  the  question  of 
the  persistence  of  these  states.  This 
persistence  depends  on  their  character 
and  origin.  Some  may  persist  longer 
than  others.  The  states  of  conscious- 
ness that  we  recognize  in  every  action 


i6  BUDDHISM   AND 

of  daily  life  are  obviously  divisible  into 
two  classes,  namely,  those  that  ori- 
ginate from  without  and  those  that 
originate  from  within.  The  first  are 
conditioned  by  space  and  time,  the 
latter  are  not. 

Let  us  take  a  homely  illustration, 
the  simpler  the  better.  Each  of  you,  let 
us  say,  had  breakfast  this  morning. 
While  you  were  eating  it  you  were  con- 
scious of  it,  how  it  looked  and  tasted, 
and  these  states  of  consciousness  were 
imposed  on  your  minds  from  the  out- 
side by  the  action  of  matter  on  matter, 
—  the  matter  of  the  breakfast  on  the 
matter  of  your  nerves  of  sight  and  taste. 
This  action  is  as  constant  as  any  other 
purely  mechanical  action,  and  if  your 
sensory  and  nervous  machinery  is  in 
normal  running  order,   the  resulting 


IMMORTALITY  17 

states  of  consciousness  are  as  constant 
as  the  cause  that  produces  them.  All 
these  forms  of  consciousness,  I  repeat, 
were  imposed  on  your  minds  from  with- 
out in  the  form  of  distinct  sensations, 
as  we  call  them,  sensations  existing  at 
that  particular  time  and  place. 

Again,  you  are  conscious  of  being  in 
this  hall  to-night.  As  before,  this  con- 
sciousness is  imposed  on  your  minds 
from  without  in  the  form  of  distinct 
sensations  existing  at  this  particular 
time  and  place.  You  see  the  hall  and 
the  audience  exactly  as  you  saw  your 
breakfast-room  and  your  breakfast. 

Now,  think,  for  a  moment,  of  your 
breakfasts.  Where  and  when  is  that 
thought?  Is  it  here  and  now,  or  there 
and  then  ?  Plainly  it  is  here  and  now, 
because  you  are  here,  now,  and  it  is 


i8  BUDDHISM   AND 

your  thought.  Equally  plainly  it  is 
there  and  then,  or  it  would  not  be  the 
thought  of  this  morning^s  breakfast. 
It  is  therefore  both.  Now  a  state  of 
consciousness  conditioned  by  two  mu- 
tually exclusive  opposites  is  uncondi- 
tioned by  either.  In  other  words,  your 
thought  is  unconditioned  by  space  and 
time. 

By  what,  then,  is  it  conditioned  ? 
The  answer  is  as  important  as  it  is  ob- 
vious. It  is  conditioned  by  your  will, 
—  the  act  of  volition  that  calls  the 
thought  of  the  breakfast  into  being, 
and  not  by  the  direct  sensory  impres- 
sions, whose  forms  and  sum  it  repro- 
duces. Herein  lies  the  fundamental 
difference  between  the  consciousness 
of  the  breakfast  as  you  eat  it,  and  the 
consciousness  of  it  that  you,  being  in 


^i'  i^  I  T  I.  r\  w  I 
OF 

IMMORTALITY  19 

another  place,  create  by  an  act  of  will 
twelve  hours  afterward. 

This  second  state  of  consciousness 
is  conditioned  only  by  the  will,  and 
we  can  make  it  what  we  choose.  If  our 
mental  machinery  is  in  good  working 
order,  we  can  recall  the  breakfast  ex- 
actly as  it  was.  This  we  call  memory. 
Or,  if  we  like,  we  can  increase  or  di- 
minish or  alter  it  in  any  particular.  For 
coffee  and  rolls,  we  may  substitute 
ortolans  and  peacocks*  tongues,  and  so 
on.  There  is  no  limit  to  it.  This  we 
call  imagination ;  and  what  I  want  to 
emphasize  is  that  memory  and  imagi- 
nation are  identical  in  being  states  of 
consciousness  produced  by  the  will, 
and  differ  only  in  the  closeness  of  their 
correspondence  with  antecedent  states. 

Here,  then,  at  the  outset  are  two 


20  BUDDHISM   AND 

opposite  ways  in  which  states  of  con- 
sciousness may  be  produced.  First, 
from  without,  by  matter  acting  on 
matter,  either  through  contact,  direct 
or  indirect,  or  by  means  of  vibrations, 
such  as  those  of  sound  and  light.  This 
we  may  call,  for  convenience,  the  sen- 
sory origin  of  consciousness,  since  it 
involves  direct  relation  through  the 
senses  with  the  great  machinery  of  ex- 
ternal nature, —  machinery  which  goes 
at  its  own  rate  and  in  its  own  way,  and 
acts  as  a  stimulus  to  consciousness 
on  the  one  hand  and  as  a  pendulum 
or  balance  wheel  to  it  on  the  other. 
Second,  from  within,  by  the  action  of 
the  will. 

Is  there  a  third  way  ?  Obviously 
there  is.  Suppose  we  disconnect  the 
pendulum  of  material  nature  from  one 


IMMORTALITY  21 

end  of  the  machine  and  the  guiding 
motive  power  of  the  will  from  the 
other,  the  wheels  will  keep  on  turning 
for  a  time  by  their  own  momentum,  and 
states  of  consciousness  will  ensue  which 
are  apparently  spontaneous.  The  most 
familiar  instance  of  this  is  in  common 
dreams.  Such  states  of  conscious- 
ness, having  neither  guide  on  the  one 
hand  nor  check  on  the  other,  are  usu- 
ally dislocated  and  confused,  but  in 
this  respect  there  is,  of  course,  a  vast 
range  of  difference.  A  dream  may  be, 
and  commonly  is,  incoherent  to  the 
point  of  grotesqueness.  It  may  be  any- 
thing from  that  up  to  a  logical  continu- 
ous sequence,  as  distinct  and  vivid  as 
a  waking  reality.  In  a  well-known  and 
often  cited  case,  such  a  sequence  con- 
tinued night  after  night  in  the  form 


22  BUDDHISM   AND 

of  a  separate  dream-life,  with  its  own 
events  and  incidents,  until  the  dreamer 
found  himself  literally  unable  to  tell 
which  of  the  two  alternate  lives  he  was 
leading  was  the  real  one.  Each  had  its 
orderly  succession  of  days  and  nights, 
and  going  to  sleep  in  one  meant  waking 
up  in  the  other.  Each  was  real  while 
it  lasted,  the  other  being  the  dream 
until  he  came  back  to  it,  when  the 
conditions  were  again  reversed.  It  is 
well  to  bear  this  case  in  mind  as  a  good 
illustration  of  an  important,  though 
elementary  fact,  that  every  complete 
state  of  consciousness  is  real  to  itself, 
and  unreal  to  other  states. 

We  have,  then,  broadly  speaking, 
three  separate  and  definite  ways  in 
which  states  of  consciousness  may  ori- 
ginate,—  one   external,  and   two  in- 


IMMORTALITY  23 

ternal;  namely,  through  the  senses, 
by  the  will,  and  spontaneously.  The 
first,  in  a  normal  organism, —  and  we 
are  not  considering  here  any  patho- 
logical conditions  whatever,  —  is  as 
regular  and  invariable  as  the  order 
of  external  nature,  on  which  it  is 
based.  The  second  conforms  to  ex- 
ternal nature  or  deviates  from  it,  as 
we  choose.  When  it  conforms,  we  call 
it  memory.  When  it  deviates,  we  call 
it  imagination.  The  third  is  gener- 
ally irregular,  and  depends  on  the  mo- 
mentum or  impetus  of  the  thinking 
machinery  itself. 

I  have  spoken  so  far  of  external  and 
internal  stimuli  as  exciting  conscious- 
ness, and  most  of  you  have  accepted 
these  terms  without  giving  them  a  sec- 
ond thought.   Internal  and  external, 


/ 


24  BUDDHISM   AND 

subjective  and  objective,  ego  and  non- 
ego,  self  and  the  rest  of  the  universe, 
—  these  categories  are  not  only  famil- 
iar, but  from  our  western  point  of 
view  fundamental,  and  represent  the 
first  great  obvious  distinction  which  at 
once  underlies  and  dominates  most,  if 
not  all,  of  our  religious,  philosophical, 
and  scientific  thought.  Consciously  or 
unconsciously,  we  habitually  think  of 
ourselves  and  the  universe  in  those 
terms. 

Let  us  examine  them  a  little  more 
closely.  Internal  and  external  —  ex- 
ternal to  what  ? 

Certainly,  not  external  to  conscious- 
ness, in  the  Buddhist  view,  for  they  are 
consciousness,  and  nothing  else.  To 
say  that  they  are  external  to  it  is  a  con- 
tradiction in  terms.  They  exist  only  in 


IMMORTALITY  25 

consciousness.  If  they  are  external  to 
it,  they  cease  to  exist. 

External  to  the  body,  then?  This  is 
more  accurate.  The  body  is  a  material 
object;  and  whatever  else  it  may  be 
in  its  relation  to  the  phenomena  of  its 
own  organic  life,  it  is  itself  matter  in 
its  relation  to  other  matter. 

What,  then,  do  we  mean  by  matter 
as  we  ordinarily  understand  the  word  ? 
For  practical  purposes  we  commonly 
mean  aggregations  of  centres  of  vibra- 
tion whose  rate  lies  between  the  low- 
est infra-red  and  the  highest  ultra-vio- 
let which  are  the  normal  working 
limits  of  our  senses. 

What  are  the  simplest  and  most  ob- 
vious characteristics  of  such  matter, 
the  essential  conditions  of  its  existence 
by  virtue  of  which  it  is  matter?   There 


26  BUDDHISM  AND 

are  of  course  two,  time  and  space.  This 
is  a  commonplace.  Yet  it  is  of  the 
utmost  importance  in  this  connection. 
For  if,  as  I  have  tried  to  show  you, 
certain  states  of  consciousness,  which 
we  have  defined  as  the  mechanical  or 
sensory  forms,  have  their  origin  in  the 
action  of  matter  on  matter,  then  those 
states  of  consciousness  will  necessarily 
be  subject  in  form  to  the  two  condi- 
tions of  which  I  have  just  spoken. 

This  point  is  fundamental  and  vital. 
It  is  the  turning-point  on  which  the 
whole  question  of  immortality  hinges. 
Matter  is  conditioned  by  space  and 
time.  Direct  sensory  consciousness, 
being  based  on  matter,  is  necessarily 
equally  so  conditioned.  But  states  of 
consciousness  not  based  on  matter  are 
not. 


IMMORTALITY  27 

Now,  the  space  and  time  relations 
of  matter  may  be  summed  up  in  one 
word,  separateness ;  those  of  conscious- 
ness in  the  opposite  term,  unity.  This 
is  an  elementary  commonplace.  One 
chair  is  separate  from  another  chair, 
one  tree  from  another  tree,  one  animal 
body  from  another  animal  body, — 
nor  can  you,  by  any  means,  make  two 
into  one.  But  with  consciousness  the 
exact  contrary  is  true.  Unity,  not  sep- 
arateness, is  the  essential  characteristic. 
Two  men  cannot  sit  in  the  same  chair 
at  the  same  time,  but  any  number  of 
men  can  think  of  the  same  chair  at  the 
same  time.  This  seems  a  proposition 
of  childish  simplicity,  and  so  it  is,  but 
it  is  the  turning-point  of  the  whole 
matter.  I  repeat,  the  essential  charac- 


28  BUDDHISM   AND 

teristic  of  matter  is  separateness.  That 
of  consciousness  is  unity.  You  cannot 
make  two  chairs  one.  You  cannot  make 
the  consciousness  of  a  chair  anything 
but  one,  no  matter  how  many  minds  it 
occurs  in.  A  proof  of  this  last  propo- 
sition, if  proof  were  needed,  is  in  the 
use  of  language.  You  speak  of  a  chair 
to  your  neighbor.  The  word  corre- 
sponds to  a  definite  state  of  conscious- 
ness in  you  which  you  want  to  excite  in 
him.  If  the  word  chair  fails  to  do  so,  if 
it  excites  a  different  state,  or  none,  lan- 
guage is  useless.  Human  intercourse 
is  based  on  the  assumption  that  states 
of  consciousness,  whether  called  up 
by  the  arbitrary  signal  of  a  word  or  by 
direct  sensory  impressions,  are  con- 
stant in  every  mind,  and  identical 
in  all  minds.    If  it  were  not  so,  we 


IMMORTALITY  29 

should    be  incontinently  reduced   to 
chaos. 

So  far  we  have  dealt  with  states  of 
consciousness  as  external  and  internal 
to  the  body.  But  how  about  the  body 
itself?  We  have  considered  it  as  the 
vehicle  or  medium  of  transmission 
of  mechanical  stimuli  from  external 
sources  to  the  conscious  centre,  which 
for  convenience  we  have  regarded  as 
a  sort  of  dial  or  indicator  hung  midway 
between  the  senses  on  the  one  hand  and 
the  will  on  the  other.  It  is  like  the  dial 
of  a  watch.  The  hands  go  at  a  definite 
rate  exactly  in  time  with  the  move- 
ments of  the  physical  universe.  That 
is  sensory  consciousness.  But  you  can 
set  them  anywhere  you  like  by  turning 
the  appropriate  knob.  That  is  voli- 
tional consciousness.  We  have  classed 


30  BUDDHISM   AND 

such  sensory  stimuli  as  external.  But 
how  shall  we  class  stimuli  which  arise 
within  the  body  itself?  How  about 
physical  pain  ? 

The  case  here  is  essentially  identical 
with  that  of  other  sensory  stimuli. 
You  touch  a  knife.  This  is  ordinary 
sensation.  You  cut  your  finger  with  it. 

Pain  ensues.  Either  case  is  an  instance 

* 

of  the  impact  of  matter  on  matter, — 
the  matter  of  the  knife  on  the  matter 
of  your  nervous  terminations.  The 
pain  lasts  more  or  less  till  the  cut  is 
well,  the  local  disturbances  of  inflam- 
mation and  repair  still  acting  directly 
on  the  nerves  of  sensation,  the  same 
nerves  through  which  both  the  touch 
and  the  cut  were  originally  felt.  The 
practical  difference  is  that  the  pain  is  a 
danger  signal.  It  shows  that  something 


IMMORTALITY  31 

is  wrong.  That  something  may  be  a 
cut,  or  the  grating  of  a  rheumatic  joint, 
or  a  neuralgic  pain,  but  in  every  case 
something  is  wrong.  When  a  pain  is 
due  to  external  injury,  natural  selec- 
tion fosters  its  avoidance.  Avoiding 
pain  means  avoiding  injury.  Pain  is 
therefore,  primarily,  an  element  in  the 
conservation  of  the  life  of  the  individ- 
ual, and  therefore  of  the  species,  in  the 
presence  of  outside  attacks,  and  it  is  to 
be  regarded  as  in  this  respect  like  any 
other  element  in  the  process  of  natural 
selection. 

In  this  connection  the  following 
stages  are  gone  through:  — 

I.  Animals  who  feel  pain  and  avoid 
it,  thereby  avoiding  injury,  tend  to 
be  preserved  by  natural  selection,  as 
against  those  who  do  not. 


32  BUDDHISM   AND 

2.  This  habitual  action -of  avoidance 
becomes  reflex  by  habit,  the  withdrawal 
of  a  hand  when  pricked  or  burnt  finally 
becoming  automatic,  and  accomplished 
by  a  short  circuit  of  the  nervous  tele- 
graph wires  without  the  intervention 
of  consciousness. 

3.  In  natural  selection,  as  elsewhere, 
an  ounce  of  prevention  is  worth  a 
pound  of  cure,  and  the  recognition 
and  avoidance  of  pain  as  it  occurs  are 
amplified,  still  by  natural  selection, 
into  recognition  and  avoidance  of  the 
source  of  pain  as  it  approaches.  And, 
by  association  rendered  keen  by  in- 
herited experience,  the  pain  itself  is  in 
a  measure  anticipated,  this  anticipation 
being  associated  with  the  simultaneous 
desire  to  escape  from  it;  and  the  com- 
bination of  these  two  forms  of  con- 


IMMORTALITY  33 

sclousness,  like  two  metals  fused  into 
an  alloy,  in  which  neither  is  recogniz- 
able, produces  what  appears  to  be  a 
new  and  wholly  different  form,  which 
we  classify  as  an  emotion  and  call  fear. 
The  other  emotions  have  a  similar 
origin.  Anger,  for  example,  is  the  com- 
bination of  the  recognition  of  approach- 
ing danger  with  the  desire  to  repel  it. 
I  need  not  multiply  instances  to  sug- 
gest to  you  that  all  the  so-called  lower 
passions  and  emotions  are  nothing  but 
the  accumulated  effects  of  natural  se- 
lection acting  on  single  cases  in  favor 
of  the  conservation  of  the  species,  this 
action  being  favored  and  aided  by  the 
tendency  of  habitual  action  to  become 
reflex.  In  this  latter  element  lies  their 
danger  as  well  as  their  advantage.  In 
a  perfect  organism  they  are  absolutely 


34  BUDDHISM   AND 

under  the  control  of  the  will,  which 
is  another  way  of  saying  that  many  of 
them  cease  to  exist. 

These  passions  and  emotions  are 
transmitted  in  accordance  with  another 
law  stated  by  Darwin,  namely,  that 
the  traits  most  sure  to  be  inherited  are 
those  which  have  been  inherited  long- 
est, they  being  necessarily  most  directly 
concerned  with  the  persistence  of  the 

First  in  this  classification  comes  the 
need  of  safety;  then  of  food.  Both 
these  are  the  immediate  needs  of  the 
individual,  and  are  therefore  selfish, 
centripetal,  and  exclusive. 

Then  come  the  multiform  needs 
connected  with  reproduction.  These 
are  of  two  kinds,  those  connected  with 
the  individual  and   those  connected 


IMMORTALITY  35 

with  offspring.  The  former  are,  like 
the  need  of  safety  and  food,  essentially 
centripetal  and  selfish,  although  capa- 
ble of  expansion.  The  latter  are  cen- 
trifugal, altruistic,  and  inclusive. 

From  the  need  of  food,  the  need  of 
safety,  and  the  individual  interests  con- 
nected with  reproduction  spring  the 
selfish  lower  emotions,  such  as  anger, 
hate,  fear,  jealousy. 

The  unselfish  forms  of  love,  espe- 
cially of  parental  love,  by  a  mere  ex- 
pansion of  terms  become  charity  and 
altruism,  and  later  by  admixture  of 
other  elements,  such  as  imagination 
and  desire,  become  hope  and  faith.  Ma- 
ternal love  is  the  source  and  origin  of 
all  human  virtues.  This  is  not  a  figure 
of  speech.    It  is  a  fact  of  evolution. 

Desire  is  the  momentum  of  a  checked 


36  BUDDHISM   AND 

reflex.  Aptitudes  are  reflexes  of 
slightly  greater  complexity,  and  as  a 
rule  not  concerned  directly  with  type 
preservation.  We  say  that  a  boy  has 
an  aptitude  for  music,  but  not  an  apti- 
tude for  eating. 

So  we  may  for  convenience  add  an- 
other to  our  list  of  the  forms  of  con- 
sciousness. We  began  with  the  sensory 
impressions  in  their  five  familiar  forms. 
We  added  sensations  of  pleasure  and 
pain  arising  within  the  body  itself.  We 
then  saw  that  certain  reactions  to 
these  impressions  concerned  in  the 
preservation  of  the  type  were  filtered 
out  and  fostered  by  natural  selection, 
emphasized  and  strengthened  by  habit 
and  its  consequent  reflexes,  till  their 
origin  was  for  the  most  part  lost  to 
view,  and  they  reappeared  in  the  form 


IMMORTALITY  37 

of  abstract  passions,  emotions,  apti- 
tudes, and  the  like  —  forms  of  con- 
sciousness so  remote  from  that  from 
which  they  sprang  that  they  are  almost 
unrecognizable  in  their  disguise. 

So  far  we  have  been  concerned  only 
with  the  ordinary  experience  of  human 
life  as  everybody  knows  it,  and  the 
count  up  to  this  point  is  essentially 
complete. 

Is  there  anything  else? 

I  have  again  and  again  referred  to 
the  will,  and  you  have  understood  me 
without  a  moment's  hesitation.  This 
will  is  a  part  of  the  normal  conscious- 
ness of  each  one  of  you,  yet  it  is 
neither  a  part  of  sensation  nor  emo- 
tion, but  on  the  contrary  is  capable  of 
dominating  both. 

What  is   it?  Ask  your  own   con- 


38  BUDDHISM   AND 

sciousness.  Sensations  originate  out- 
side and  inside  the  body;  emotions, 
inside.  But  the  will  is  deeper  than 
either,  and  they  are  both  objective  to  it. 
We  cannot  classify  it  with  anything 
else.  We  cannot  describe  it  in  terms 
of  any  other  form  of  consciousness. 
We  are  conscious  through  our  bodies 
and  of  our  bodies,  but  the  conscious- 
ness of  the  will  is  direct.  We  cannot 
separate  ourselves  from  it.  We  can- 
not stand  off  and  examine  it.  We 
cannot  modify  it  by  anything  else.  It 
itself  modifies  everything  within  its 
scope.  Other  forms  of  consciousness 
are  objective  in  their  relation  to  it,  but 
it  is  never  objective  to  them.  It  may 
be  overpowered  by  sensations,  emo- 
tions, or  passions,  through  its  own 
weakness  or  their  strength.  It  often  is. 


IMMORTALITY  39 

But  its  attitude  towards  them,  whether 
resisting  or  directing  them,  is  always 
essentially  and  necessarily  active.  It 
exists  in  no  other  form  than  the  sub- 
jective form.  It  is  inconceivable  in  any 
other  form.  If  it  is  not  active,  it  is 
not  will.  There  is  nothing  in  our  con- 
sciousness deeper.  It  underlies  and 
overlies  and  permeates  all  other  forms, 
and,  moreover,  —  what  is  of  immea- 
surably greater  importance,  —  it  can,  if 
need  be,  create  them.  This  last  is  the 
central  fact  to  which  all  that  I  have 
said  leads  up.  Fully  to  realize  this  is  to 
hold  the  key  to  immortality.  Will  is 
the  assertion  of  a  form  of  conscious- 
ness from  the  centre  outward.  When 
this  is  opposed  by  another  form  of 
consciousness,  intruding  from  the  cir- 
cumference inward,  we  recognize  a  hin- 


40  BUDDHISM   AND 

drance  to  the  free  action  of  the  will, 
and  we  talk  of  "necessity."  But  such 
intrusive  forms  are,  as  we  have  seen, 
ultimately  and  essentially  of  material 
origin.  They  come  from  or  through 
the  body, — the  material,  separate  per- 
sonality. If  it  were  not  for  these,  the 
will  would  act  freely.  The  separate 
personal  consciousness  with  its  off- 
shoots is  therefore  the  only  obstacle 
to  complete  freedom  of  the  will.  Com- 
plete freedom  of  the  will  is  complete 
freedom  of  consciousness,  and  com- 
plete freedom  of  consciousness  from 
the  habitual  and  empirical  limitations 
of  personality  is  complete  freedom  of 
the  will.  The  terms  are  interchange- 
able. The  only  will  that  is  not  free  is 
the  personal  will. 

Descartes  said,  "I  think,  therefore 


IMMORTALITY  41 

I  am."  It  is  an  imperfect  formula  at 
best,  but  it  would  have  been  a  better 
statement  had  he  said,  "I  am  con- 
scious, therefore  I  am";  and  best  of  all 
had  he  said,  "  I  will,  therefore  I  am." 
Now,  is  there  anything  more?  How 
about  the  "self"?  How  about  the  so- 
called  character?  Is  there  not  a  separate 
"self"  back  of  it  all,— a  "self"  that 
feels  and  wills,  but  is  neither  feeling 
nor  voHtion,  any  more  than  the  finger 
is  the  pin  that  pricks  it  or  the  nervous 
stimulus  that  moves  it?  Surely  it  would 
seem  that  there  must  be.  Surely  the 
existence  of  such  a  separate  self  would 
seem  to  be  the  basis  of  all  human  ac- 
tions. Even  at  the  beginning  of  this  lec- 
ture, our  starting-point  was  to  assume 
that "  something  exists,"  and  provision- 
ally to  call  that  something  ourselves. 


42  BUDDHISM   AND 

What  do  we  mean  by  the  "self"? 
Obviously  it  is  a  limitation  of  some 
sort.  What  limits  it?  What  shuts  off 
the  self  from  the  rest  of  the  universe? 
We  are  so  small,  the  universe  is  so 
great,  we  say.  Yet  all  we  know  of  the 
universe  is  inside  our  heads.  Are  our 
heads,  then,  of  cosmic  dimensions?  Or 
is  the  universe  smaller  than  it  seems? 
There  is  an  inconsistency  here  some- 
where. If  the  universe  will  go  iiito  a 
man's  head,  what  is  there  about  the 
man  that  is  smaller  than  the  universe? 

Put  in  this  way,  the  question  an- 
swers itself.  The  man's  material  body 
is  smaller,  and  that  is  the  only  thing 
about  him  that  is.  His  mind,  that  is, 
his  consciousness,  is  larger,  and,  what 
is  more,  it  is  indefinitely  larger.  It 
could  take  in  a  dozen  universes,  or  a 


IMMORTALITY  43 

milliorij  as  easily  as  one.  Conscious-  | 
ness  has  no  dimensions. 

But,  you  may  say,  if  a  man  consists 
of  states  of  consciousness,  what,  then, 
are  the  limitations  of  the  "self"?  If 
these  states  of  consciousness  may  in- 
clude the  universe,  and  more  too,  why 
is  not  the  self  co-extensive  with  the 
universe? 

Now,  this  is  exactly  what  it  is. 
The  self  is  co-extensive  with  the  uni- 
verse. The  difference  between  organic 
beings  is  merely  Jiowjtnuch  of  them- 
selvesjhey  realize.  The  separate  per- 
sonality is  real  only  in  terms  of  mat- 
ter and  in  such  forms  of  consciousness 
as  originate  or  are  expressed  in  terms 
of  material  existence. 

The  self  is  believed  to  be  a  sepa- 
rate entity  only  because  of  the  over- 


44  BUDDHISM    AND 

whelming  preponderance  in  human 
life  of  sensory  experience,  which 
through  habit,  fostered  by  natural 
selection,  tends  to  impose  its  laws 
on  all  human  consciousness.  This  is 
the  fundamental  fact  of  human  life. 
Consciousness  is  continuous  and  uni- 
versal. Matter  is  separate  and  par- 
ticular. But  we  habitually  think  in 
terms  of  matter.  In  short,  we  live 
in  terms  of  matter.  It  is  only  on 
those  terms  that  we  live  at  all.  If  we 
deviate  from  them  in  the  slightest 
degree,  our  earthly  career  is  promptly 
terminated  by  the  simple  law  of  natu- 
ral selection,  the  survival  of  the  fit- 
test to  survive. 

Each  man  therefore  carries  in  him- 
self the  conditions  and  limitations  of 
his  own  universe,  and  it  is  for  him  to 


IMMORTALITY  45 

say  how  large  that  universe  shall  be. 
Habitual  actions  always  tend  to  be- 
come reflex,  and  the  more  attention  a 
man  pays  to  his  own  separate  material 
existence,  the  more  restricted  his  uni- 
verse becomes.  It  is  a  truism  to  say 
that  attention  to  individual  physical 
needs,  physical  sensations,  and  the  cen- 
tripetal reflexes  growing  from  them, 
tends  to  perpetuate  and  insure  physical 
existence.  On  the  other  hand,  every^ 
thing  which  tends  away  from  self,  such 
as  unselfish  love,  parental  love,  and 
the  altruistic  centrifugal  reflexes  devel- 
oped from  them,  tends  to  expansion; 
and  the  larger  the  included  circle  of 
altruistic  action  is,  the  smaller  the 
danger  becomes  of  perpetuating  the 
restrictions  of  separate  individual  ex- 
istence imposed  by  natural  selection 


46  BUDDHISM   AND 

acting   in   and  through  the  material 
world. 

This  conflict  of  the  centripetal  and 
centrifugal  forces,  of  which  the  so- 
called  self  is  the  centre,  is  the  basis 
of  morality.  Broadly  speaking,  what 
is  done  for  one's  self  is  bad ;  what  is 
done  for  some  one  else  is  good.  Con- 
sciously or  unconsciously,  this  idea 
lies  at  the  foundation  of  all  the  high- 
est moral  teaching.  The  highest  vir- 
tues are  those  which  conduce  to  the 
extinction  of  terrestrial  types.  The 
struggle  for  existence  is  the  struggle 
for  terrestrial,  that  is,  material  exist- 
ence. If  a  selfish  man  and  an  altruist 
are  wrecked  on  a  desert  island  with 
only  food  enough  for  one,  the  selfish 
man  will  survive.  The  penalty  of  al- 
truism is  extermination.   Yet  no  one 


IMMORTALITY  47 

would  maintain  for  a  moment  that  the 
altruist  is  not  the  higher  type  of  man. 

If  I  have  been  so  fortunate  as  to 
make  the  subject  clear  up  to  this  point, 
you  will  understand  that  the  material 
self  is  the  fixed  point  from  which  man 
is  measured.  To  expand  the  conscious- 
ness away  from  it  means  spiritual 
growth.  To  contract  toward  it  means 
spiritual  deterioration.  To  work  away 
from  it  means,  in  familiar  language^ 
virtue;  to  work  toward  it,  vice. 

To  work  toward  it  requires  no  ef- 
fort whatever.  A  man  has  only  to  let 
himself  go,  to  make  himself  passive  to 
the  law  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest, 
and  he  drops  toward  it  as  naturally  as  a 
stone  falls,  if  he  is  dominated,  as  most 
men  are,  by  the  lower  reflexes.  The 
upper  altruistic  reflexes  will  eventually 


48  BUDDHISM   AND 

carry  him  the  other  way  as  they  be- 
come strong  enough.  But  the  com- 
monest condition  of  the  human  race 
is  the  natural  passive  tendency  to  grav- 
itate to  the  centre,  on  the  one  hand, 
opposed  by  the  active  force  of  the  will 
and  of  whatever  higher  reflexes  a  man 
may  possess,  on  the  other.  As  before, 
we  come  back  to  the  will  as  the  deter- 
mining factor. 

If  you  have  followed  me  so  far,  you 
will  follow  me  a  step  further.  If  a  man 
consists  of  states  of  consciousness,  as 
the  Buddhist  doctrine  affirms,  then  so 
far  as  any  of  them  cease,  the  man  ceases. 
So  far  as  any  of  them  last,  the  man 
lasts,  and  lasts  as  long  as  they  do,  and 
no  longer. 

Have  we  any  evidence  as  to  how 
long  they  last? 


IMMORTALITY  49 

We  have  a  good  deal.  Let  us  take  a 
priori  evidence  first.  Those  qualities, 
said  Darwin,  which  have  been  longest 
inherited  are  surest  to  be  inherited. 
The  same  is  true  of  the  states  of  con- 
sciousness. Those  which  are  formed 
most  slowly  dissolve  most  slowly. 

Sensory  impressions  come  in  a  per- 
petual shower,  and  the  drops  for  the 
most  part  dry  as  soon  as  they  fall. 
Ninety-nine  hundredths  of  our  sen- 
sory impressions  are  transitory.  Most 
of  them  do  not  call  for  action  of  any 
sort,  any  more  than  the  passing  land- 
scape seen  from  a  car  window. 

But  certain  of  them  do  call  for  action ; 
and  if  they  are  repeated  often  enough, 
that  action  becomes  first  habitual,  then 
reflex  or  automatic,  and  any  further 
stimulus  of  the  same  sort  tends  to  be 


50  BUDDHISM   AND 

dealt  with  primarily  by  that  habitual 
reflex,  and  only  secondarily  by  the  con- 
sciousness and  will.  Now  it  is  the  sum 
of  a  number  of  such  habitual  reflexes 
acting  singly  or  together  which  we  call 
character.  Character  may  be  changed 
—  it  is  changed  more  or  less  —  during 
an  ordinary  life,  but  it  is  part  of  the 
makeup  of  every  individual  at  birth. 
Where  does  it  come  from?-  From  the 
parents? 

The  fact  of  the  resemblance  of  off- 
spring to  parents  is  a  matter  of  every- 
day knowledge  all  over  the  world.  In 
the  West  we  call  it  an  illustration  of 
heredity  or  atavism,  the  persistence  of 
a  parental  or  ancestral  type.  In  the 
East  it  is  regarded  as  an  illustration  of 
rebirth  or  reincarnation.  There  is  no 
mystery  about  it.  There  is  no  disagree- 


IMMORTALITY  51 

ment  in  regard  to  the  facts.  The  West, 
talking  in  general  colloquial  terms  of 
body  and  soul,  regards  the  body  in- 
herited from  the  parents  —  that  is,  the 
physical  and  material  body  —  as  the 
determining  factor,  the  mould  to  which 
all  non-physical  qualities  necessarily 
conform,  because  they  are  in  some  way 
produced  by  or  derived  from  it. 

The  East,  on  the  other  hand,  re- 
garding the  collection  of  qualities  fa- 
miliarly expressed  by  the  term  "soul'* 
as  dominant,  says  that  a  soul  has  re- 
newed its  relations  with  the  material 
world  by  rebirth,  and  gradually,  in  the 
process  of  normal  growth,  has  forced 
the  matter  with  which  it  is  associated 
into  more  or  less  the  same  shape  which 
it  had  before,  just  as  the  seed  in  the 
course  of  normal  growth  forces  the  in- 


52  BUDDHISM    AND 

•organic  matter  of  the  air  and  soil  into 
the  shape  of  the  plant  from  which  it 
came.  In  Japan  the  process  is  habitu- 
ally known  and  spoken  of  by  this  re- 
semblance. The  Japanese  word  for  it 
is  iNGWA,  IN  meaning  seed  and  kwa 
flower.  Of  late  years  in  the  West  the 
Sanscrit  word  karma  has  come  to  be 
somewhat  loosely  used  with  the  same 
general  meaning,  although  some  of 
the  highest  Buddhist  authorities  in 
Japan  are  inclined  to  restrict  the  mean- 
ing of  Karma  to  one  element  of  the 
process. 

It  is  beyond  my  scope  to-night  to 
draw  comparisons  or  present  argu- 
ments. My  business  is  simply  to  state 
the  facts  as  they  appear  from  the  Bud- 
dhist standpoint.  But  I  cannot  help 
calling  attention  to  one  or  two  points 


IMMORTALITY  53 

bearing  on  the  alternative  theories  of 
heredity  and  rebirth  :  — 

First.  If  material  constitution,  that 
is,  inheritance,  which  makes  for  iden- 
tity, modified  by  the  tendency  to  vari- 
ation, is  the  cause  of  character,  then, 
as  the  laws  of  matter  do  not  vary,  we 
have  no  way  of  accounting  for  the 
tendency  to  variation  itself.  It  is  an 
unsolved  x,  an  ultimate  fact  with  no- 
thing behind  it. 

Whereas,  if  the  psychical  character- 
istics —  the  soul,  to  take  the  shortest 
word — are  the  dominant  factors,  the 
tendency  to  variation  follows  as  a 
matter  of  course. 

Second.  If  material  constitution  is 
the  cause  of  character,  the  range  of 
variation  ought  to  be  equally  great 
in  different  forms  of  animal  life :  for 


54  BUDDHISM    AND 

instance,  in  men,  sheep,  and  herring. 
Whereas,  if  variation  is  determined 
by  character,  the  greatest  variation 
should  occur  where  the  characters  are 
most  complex,  —  as  it  does. 

Third.  Family  resemblance  often 
asserts  itself  most  clearly  in  the  second 
generation.  And  it  will  be  noticed  that 
the  very  close  resemblance  of  a  child 
to  a  grandparent  is  generally  associated 
with  two  facts,  —  that  the  ancestor  in 
question  has  been  dead  less  than  ten 
years ;  and  that  the  very  marked  re- 
semblance occurs  but  once,  no  matter 
how  numerous  the  grandchildren  may 
be.  These  are  facts  of  observation 
which  any  one  can  verify.  Heredity  by 
physical  transmission  offers  no  expla- 
nation of  either.  Whereas,  from  three 
to  ten  years  is  the  ordinary  interval  for 


IMMORTALITY  55 

reincarnation/  and  the  single  resem- 
blance is  the  natural  result  of  the  re- 
birth of  a  single  soul. 

The  apparent  bearing  of  Mendel's 
law  here  is  too  obvious  to  be  over- 
looked. But  it  is  perhaps  too  early  to 
be  sure  just  what  is  behind  Mendel's 
law. 

Now,  if  character  reincarnates,  what 
becomes  of  it  between  the  time  of  one 
man's  death  and  the  next  man's  birth? 

Let  me  remind  you  of  Darwin  again. 
"Those  characteristics  are  most  sure  to 

'  This  is  the  average  interval  for  human  en- 
tities. The  later  birthrate  falls  off  rapidly  with  each 
generation  until  by  the  end  of  the  third  —  about 
a  century  in  round  numbers  —  practically  all  en- 
tities have  been  reborn  who  are  going  to  be. 

The  lower  animals  are  reborn  much  more 
quickly  as  a  rule.  The  momentum  of  material 
existence  tends  to  sweep  them  promptly  back 
to  it. 


56  BUDDHISM   AND 

be  transmitted  which  have  been  long- 
est transmitted."  But  as  1  have  tried 
to  show  you,  character  is  built  up 
of  reflexes  which  are  essentially  and 
necessarily  the  oldest  things  about 
the  individual  organism.  Therefore, 
according  to  Darwin,  the  character  is 
exactly  what  we  should  expect  to  find 
transmitted. 

Still  this  does  not  answer  the  ques- 
tion of  what  becomes  of  it  in  the  in- 
terval between  death  and  birth.  A 
living  man*s  character  we  know,  but 
a  dead  body  has  no  character.  If  that 
character  persists,  it  must  be  some- 
where in  the  mean  time.  There  is  a 
gap  here  to  be  filled  up. 

Is  there  ? 

Let  me  ask  you  to  recall  that  sub- 
ject of  breakfast.    Remember  that  no 


IMMORTALITY  57 

consciousness  but  immediate  sensory- 
consciousness  is  conditioned  by  space 
and  time.  Remember  that  immediate 
sensory  consciousness  depends  on  the 
action  of  the  matter  of  the  external 
universe  on  the  matter  of  the  body, 
.  and  stops  at  death.  Then  consider 
the  question  of  what  has  become  of 
the  reincarnating  entity  in  the  interval. 
From  the  point  of  view  of  that  entity 
the  interval  as  we  know  it  does  not 
exist,  and  it  is  our  error  to  suppose 
that  it  does, — an  error  arising  as  usual 
from  our  disastrous  habit  of  thinking 
in  terms  based  on  matter. 

Is,  then,  rebirth  in  one's  own  family 
the  only  alternative? 

By  no  means.  The  soul  follows  its 
strongest  ties.  These  are  generally  the 
family  ties,  but  not  always ;  and  the 


58  BUDDHISM    AND 

soul  always  finds  its  own  level  where 
its  own  character  is  most  at  home.  If 
it  is  too  sensual  and  self-absorbed,  that 
is,  too  centripetal,  to  find  a  human 
birth  at  all,  it  will  find  its  birth  as  an 
animal ;  and  if  it  is  not  only  too  self- 
centred  but  too  actively  hostile  to 
everything  outside  itself  to  find  a  birth 
even  as  an  animal,  it  will  be  born 
lower  still. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  its  main  trait 
is  centrifugal  and  altruistic,  it  will  be 
born  where  those  qualities  have  fullest 
play  in  a  higher  state  of  existence. 

This  higher  state  is  mainly  altruistic. 
The  animal  kingdom  is  mainly  selfish. 
Human  life  is  partly  one  and  partly 
the  other. 

Now,  a  word  in  conclusion  about  the 
material  environment  and  incidents  of 


IMMORTALITY  59 

a  given  life.  I  have  said  that  conscious- 
ness is  continuous.  That  means  you 
cannot,  so  to  speak,  pick  up  a  single 
idea  alone  any  more  than  you  can  pick 
up  a  single  knot  in  the  middle  of  a 
fish-net.  You  may  pick  up  any  knot 
you  hke,  but  you  will  get  at  the  same 
time  what  is  tied  to  it.  And  if,  at  any 
point  of  the  summed-up  consciousness 
of  a  man's  life,  there  is  tied  the  record 
of  an  injury  done  to  another  man,  that 
record  will  infallibly  remain  tied;  and 
when,  in  a  later  life,  in  disentangling  the 
threads  of  his  own  existence  in  terms 
of  time  and  space,  he  comes  again  to 
that  particular  point,  that  injury  will 
return  against  him  with  the  accuracy 
of  a  spring  which  expends  when  re- 
leased the  exact  energy  required  to 
compress  it,  and  the  blow  he  receives 


6o  BUDDHISM   AND 

will  be  just  as  hard  as  the  blow  he 
gave.  Action  and  reaction  are  equal 
and  opposite. 

From  a  higher  point  of  view  the 
case  may  be  put  in  this  way.  Con- 
sciousness is  continuous.  Therefore, 
there  is  but  one  ultimate  conscious- 
ness. All  beings  are  therefore  one; 
and  when  one  man  strikes  another,  he 
strikes  all  men,  including  himself.  Just 
when  and  where  and  how  in  terms  of 
space  and  time  he  feels  his  own  blow 
depends  on  circumstances,  but  sooner 
or  later  he  will.  A  good  deed  comes 
back  to  the  doer  in  the  same  way. 

I  have  just  said  that  consciousness  is 
one,  and  all  beings  are  therefore  one. 
The  difference  in  beings,  therefore,  is 
how  much  they  realize  of  this  universal 
consciousness.    The  process  of  evolu- 


IMMORTALITY  6i 

tion  is  the  process  of  increase  in  the 
amount  realized.  The  only  thing  that 
prevents  a  man  from  realizing  the 
whole  of  it  is  the  accumulated  habit 
of  countless  generations  of  thinking 
in  terms  of  self,  that  is,  of  the  mate- 
rial self.  It  was  not  the  fault  of  our 
struggling  predecessors  on  this  planet 
that  they  thought  in  these  terms.  Nat- 
ural selection  took  care  of  that.  They 
had  to  think  in  that  way,  or  die. 

This  universal  consciousness  is  what 
all  existence  started  from  and  is  re- 
turning to.  How  easily  it  can  be  reached 
by  organized  beings  depends  on  their 
place  in  the  scale  of  evolution.  The 
fish  is  farther  from  it  than  the  dog, 
and  the  dog  farther  than  we,  and  we 
farther  than  higher  beings.  The  im- 
portant thing  to  us    is  that,   having 


62  BUDDHISM   AND 

evolved  to  the  stage  of  human  beings 
on  our  road  to  it,  we  can  now  see 
where  we  are  going,  and  can  greatly 
increase  our  speed  if  we  like. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  this 
may  be  done.  Character,  as  I  have  so 
often  said,  is  habitual  consciousness; 
and  I  have  compared  the  consciousness, 
that  is,  the  man,  to  the  dial  of  a  watch 
which  registers  either  the  movement  of 
external  nature  or  the  impulse  of  the 
will.  The  two  ways  of  growth  corre- 
spond to  this.  In  Buddhism  they  are 
called  respectively  the  Objective  or 
Exterior  and  the  Subjective  or  Interior 
Methods  or  Systems.* 

»  In  Japanese  Kengyo  and  Mikkyo,  literally, 
"Apparent"  and  "Non-apparent  Systems." 
Occasional  erroneous  translation  of  these  terms 
as  "Revealed"  and  ''Secret  or  Esoteric  Doc- 
trine"  has  led  to  some  popular  misconceptions. 


IMMORTALITY  63 

One  is  through  the  external  acts  of 
daily  life,  by  so  ordering  them  that  the 
lower  reflexes  are  gradually  eliminated 
and  the  higher  ones  left  and  devel- 
oped. In  other  words,  by  doing  good 
actions. 

The  other  is  internal,  through  the 
alteration  of  the  character  and  con- 
sciousness by  the  direct  action  of  the 
will. 

The  first  involves  the  simple  prac- 
tice of  ordinary  morality.  It  is  safe 
and  sure,  and  for  people  occupied  with 
the  ordinary  affairs  of  life,  usually  the 
best.  The  character  is  gradually  al- 
tered, just  as  it  was  built  up,  by  con- 
tact with  the  external  world.  The  ordi- 
nary process  of  evolutionary  growth 
is  accelerated,  but  there  is  no  break 
in  it. 


64  BUDDHISM   AND 

The  second  way  equally  involves  the 
practice  of  morality  in  daily  life.  In 
Addition,  it  involves  the  direct  action 
of  the  will  on  the  character.  It  is  gen- 
erally difficult,  and  except  for  people 
of  thoroughly  good  character,  or  under 
the  guidance  of  people  of  thoroughly 
good  character,  liable  to  be  dangerous. 
The  reason  is  obvious.  Inmost  people 
the  character,  especially  in  the  lower 
reflexes,  is  stronger  than  the  will,  even 
when  the  will  does  not  habitually  aid 
and  abet  them.  In  a  direct  conflict  be- 
tween will  and  character,  the  character 
is  apt  to  get  the  upper  hand.  I  have 
spoken  of  the  external  material  uni- 
verse as  a  sort  of  pendulum  or  balance 
wheel  to  the  organism.  In  the  present 
case  the  simile  is  exact.  It  goes  at  a 
certain  rate,   and  keeps   the    delicate 


IMMORTALITY  65 

machinery  of  the  human  conscious- 
ness from  deviating  very  far  from  that 
rate.  It  limits,  to  a  certain  extent,  the 
amount  of  good  or  harm  a  man  can 
do  to  other  men  and  consequently  to 
himself  But  if  the  balance  wheel  is 
disconnected  even  temporarily,  as  in 
meditation,  the  first  tendency  of  the 
clock  is  to  obey  the  pressure  of  the 
mainspring,  and  run  down  violently 
and  perhaps  disastrously.  If  we  try  to 
check  this  pressure  with  the  key,  we 
hold  it  in  very  unstable  equilibrium. 
And  if  we  try  with  the  key  to  make 
the  hands  go  at  any  even  rate,  it  is 
almost  impossible. 

Now,  the  spring  is  the  character, 
and  the  key  is  the  will,  and  if  the  char- 
acter is  bad,  the  result  is  disastrous, 
because  in  most  people,  as  I  have  re- 


66  BUDDHISM   AND 

peated  so  often,  natural  selection  has 
made  the  lower  reflexes  strongest,  and 
it  is  consequently  those  which  come 
into  play  first. 

Such  exercise  of  the  will  acting  di- 
rectly on  the  character  has  two  effects  : 
It  expands  the  consciousness,  and 
solidifies  the  character  by  strength- 
ening the  reflexes.  But  if  the  con- 
sciousness is  expanded  and  the  re- 
flexes are  strengthened  in  the  direction 
of  matter,  the  clock-hands  are  going 
round  the  wrong  way,  and  the  second 
state  of  the  man  is  worse  than  the 
first. 

The  ultimate  object  of  life  is  to 
acquire  freedom  from  the  limitations 
of  the  material  world  by  substituting 
volitional  for  sensory  consciousness. 
They  are  limitations  to  be  outgrown. 


IMMORTALITY  67 

There  is  a  story  of  the  last  century 
that  Emerson  was  stopped  in  the 
street  by  an  excited  member  of  the 
now  forgotten  sect  of  Millerites,  who 
exclaimed,  "  Mr.  Emerson,  do  you 
know  that  the  world  is  going  to  be 
destroyed  in  ten  days?"  "Well," 
said  Emerson,  "  I  don't  see  but  we 
shall  get  along  just  as  well  with- 
out it." 

That  is  good  Buddhist  doctrine. 

The  next  step  —  the  next  step  of 
the  human  race  —  is  to  learn  how,  as 
Emerson  says,  to  get  along  without 
it,  and  without  the  limitations  of 
thought  which  long  contact  with  it  has 
engendered.  These  limitations  are  very 
hard  to  shake  off.  Even  our  ideas, — 
I  use  the  plural  advisedly,  for  hardly 
any  two  people  agree  completely, — 


68  BUDDHISM  AND 

our  ideas  of  the  highest  possible  state 
of  existence  are  generally  anthropo- 
morphic, and  based  on  the  familiar 
experience  of  daily  life.  We  imagine 
ourselves  celestial  beings  with  celes- 
tial bodies,  but  those  bodies  have  a 
close  resemblance  to  our  own. 

Such  beings,  if  we  may  trust  the 
highest  authorities,  have  the  aspect 
of  human  beings.  They  have  arms 
and  legs  and  eyes  and  ears,  noses 
and  mouths,  and  none  of  these  or- 
gans appear  to  be  atrophied  from 
disuse.  Their  pleasures  may  be  more 
refined  than  ours  and  more  in- 
tense, their  bodies  of  finer  matter 
than  ours ;  but  they  are  still  separate 
individuals,  and  in  so  far  forth  their 
existence  is  governed  by  the  laws  of 
separation,  which  are  the  laws  of  mat- 


IMMORTALITY  69 

ter.  The  distinctions  of  subject  and 
object,  of  ego  and  non-ego,  of  ex- 
ternal and  internal,  of  active  and  pas- 
sive, still  hold  good,  and  such  beings 
live  under  the  same  laws  of  action 
and  reaction  and  interaction  that  gov- 
ern us.  The  highest  form  of  happi- 
ness we  can  conceive  for  them  is 
expressed  in  expanded  terms  of  our 
own  lives,  in  an  inexhaustible  oppor- 
tunity for  the  satisfaction  of  an  inex- 
haustible desire,  whether  for  work  or 
play  or  worship. 

Such  glorified  celestial  existence  is 
the  final  goal  of  most  religions.  In 
Northern  Buddhism  it  is  not  the  goal, 
but  an  intermediate  step  in  normal 
evolution  between  the  human  con- 
sciousness and  the  infinite  conscious- 
ness, and  the  difference  between  these 


70  BUDDHISM   AND 

is  as  great  as  that  between  the  dimen- 
sions of  the  material  physical  body  and 
the  whole  physical  universe. 

You  are  all  more  or  less  familiar 
with  that  extraordinary  entity  upon 
whose  inferential  existence  the  lines 
of  modern  scientific  research  seem  to 
converge,  the  interstellar  ether,  which 
seems  likely  to  prove  the  ultimate 
form  of  matter  out  of  which  every- 
thing comes  and  into  which  every- 
thing must  eventually  return.  You 
know  the  seemingly  contradictory 
qualities  which  the  hypothesis  of  its 
existence  involves,  —  how  it  is  per- 
fectly rigid  and  perfectly  elastic,  per- 
fectly dense  and  perfectly  penetrable, 
hot  and  cold,  heavy  and  light,  and 
so  on  as  far  as  we  like  to  go.  But,  as 
I  have  said,  antinomies  cannot  con- 


IMMORTALITY  71 

dition  existence ;  and  all  this  simply 
means  that  the  ether  is  unconditioned, 
an  entity  of  no  properties  but  of  all 
possibilities,  or,  more  exactly,  not  an 
entity  at  all,  but  an  infinite  possi- 
bility. 

To  our  minds  it  may  serve  as  a 
symbol  of  an  idea  we  cannot  well 
grasp  without  a  symbol,  the  idea  of 
unconditioned  consciousness. 

From  this  the  universe  has  come. 
To  this  the  universe  and  everything 
in  it  returns.  We  have  come  a  long 
way  up  in  the  scale  of  evolution 
guided  by  natural  selection.  We  have 
come  to  the  point  where  we  can  begin 
to  do  our  own  selecting.  We  can  un- 
derstand something  of  the  rules  of  the 
game,  and  see  something  of  the  board 
in  our  immediate  neighborhood,  al- 


72  BUDDHISM   AND 

though  our  consciousness  is  so  cramped 
and  shriveled  and  atrophied  by  long 
contact  with  the  limitations  of  material 
existence  that  we  can  even  now  barely 
and  dimly  realize  the  immensity  of 
that  which  is  at  once  our  origin  and 
our  goal. 

But  we  have  our  choice.  It  is  not 
the  world,  but  the  universe,  that  is  all 
before  us  where  to  choose.  We  may 
take  as  much  or  as  little  of  it  as  we 
like.  We  may  take  the  smallest  part 
or  the  whole.  But  only  the  whole  is 
free.  The  parts  are  conditioned  by  re- 
lations with  space  and  time  and  each 
other,  and  if  we  choose  a  part,  we  must 
take  with  it  the  adjoining  connected 
parts.  That  is  the  price.  The  Hindus 
have  long  since  put  this  into  a  popu- 
lar saying, — "What  will  you  have?" 


IMMORTALITY  73 

said  God  to  man ;  "  take  it,  and  pay 
for  it." 

But  the  choice  is  ours.  You  remem- 
ber how  well  Emerson  has  said  this  in 
that  great  poem  called  "  Days,"  which 
begins  — 

«*  Daughters  of  Time,  the  hypocritic  Days, 
Muffled  and  dumb  like  barefoot  dervishes. 
And  marching  single  in  an  endless  file. 
Bring  diadems  and  fagots  in  their  hands. 
To  each  they  offer  gifts  after  his  will. 
Bread,  kingdoms,  stars,  and  sky  that  holds  them 
all." 

Never,  perhaps,  has  the  choice  been 
better  stated.  Bread,  the  symbol  of  the 
evanescent  needs  of  daily  physical  life ; 
kingdoms,  of  power;  the  stars,  of  the 
highest  knowledge  of  material  things; 
and  the  sky  that  holds  them  all,  of  the 
last  and  greatest  alternative,  the  ulti- 


w 


74  BUDDHISM   AND 

mate  expansion  of  consciousness  that 
knows  neither  limit  nor  boundary. 
Only  in  this  expanded  consciousness 
is  the  will  free.  Only  in  limited  forms 
is  its  freedom  hampered.  The  so-called 
necessity  which  seems  to  oppose  it  is 
made  up  of  the  limitations  of  person- 
ality and  material  existence. 

There  is  a  Japanese  proverb  which 
says,  "There  are  many  roads  up  the 
mountain,  but  it  is  always  the  same 
moon  that  is  seen  from  the  top." 
The  Japanese  themselves,  with  a  lib- 
erality worthy  of  imitation,  apply  this 
saying  to  different'  forms  of  religious 
belief.  The  mountain  may  well  typ- 
ify matter,  and  the  summit  the  high- 
est point  on  which  a  climber  can 
stand  and  maintain  his  separate  indi- 
vidual existence  in  terms  of  conscious- 


IMMORTALITY  75 

ness  drawn  from  the  material  world. 
This  peak  may  be  accessible  by  any 
religion,  or  without  any  religion;  but 
Buddhism  and  its  genetically  associated 
systems  look  beyond.  The  mountain 
top  is  the  apotheosis  of  personal  ex- 
istence, the  highest  form  of  conscious- 
ness that  can  be  expressed  in  terms 
of  separate  individuality,  —  a  sublime 
elevation,  where  many  a  pilgrim  is 
content  to  pause.  Below  him  are  the 
kingdoms ;  above  him  are  the  stars ; 
and  kingdoms  and  stars  alike  are  his. 
But  it  is  not  the  end.  Deeper  than  the 
kingdom.s,  and  higher  than  the  stars, 
is  the  sky  that  holds  them  all.  And 
there  alone  is  peace,  —  that  peace 
which  the  material  world  cannot  give, 
—  the  peace  which  passeth  understand- 
ing trained  on  material  things,  —  in- 


76 


BUDDHISM 


finite  and  eternal  peace,  —  the  peace 
of  limitless  consciousness  unified  with 
limitless  will. 

That  peace  is  NIRVANA. 


CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U    .    S    .   A 


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